Tea Party of God

I wrote pages and pages of thoughts on the events that occurred in Washington DC today, some of them as I was walking around the Mall, wondering how we as a nation had reached this point. Hundreds or thousands of other people wrote on these events, too. What I can give is only a personal perspective and a few photos and videos that no one else has because I can't do anything to change these people since irrational people cannot be reasoned with.

I didn't last 20 minutes before I felt the need to get away from them. Everything that is wrong with America gathered on the National Mall today, and curiosity prompted me to put on my Obama shirt and trek down to the Lincoln Memorial. I never should have gone.

This is how much these people care about America. This massive quantity of garbage is near the Vietnam Memorial, which so many of them "solemnly" walked by without a thought in their heads about how they are responsible for the deaths of more than 5000 American troops because of their voting patterns. Their votes = murder. Not to mention the murder of more than 1 million Iraqis and Afghanis their votes are responsible for. Not that they'd give a damn about the deaths of Muslims.

It didn't feel like a rally of any sort. It was more like a giant picnic. These people just sat there in their foldable chairs next to coolers. They brought coolers and chairs to a political rally. Seriously. They were carrying massive quantities of crap for a four hour political rally. And they had to have chairs because they, well, how can I put it nicely? More of them were obese and sickly looking than not.

Some illegal politicking by Batshit Crazy Bachman's token black guy makes me wonder if we can gather enough evidence to have these people penalized for violated IRS regulations. The charity this non-political rally was supposedly for was one I've never heard of, and while I have no problem with giving scholarships to kids of veterans, this charity seemed like an afterthought. In fact, I couldn't figure out what the hell this rally was supposed to be about. There was a lot of religious nuttery - it sounds like Glenn Beck wants to turn America into a theocracy. But do his followers understand what Mormonism is? How would Beck's belief that Jesus Christ and Lucifer are brothers sit with them? Or that Mormons belief in multiple gods?



So why do us educated folks let these teabaggers get under our skins?

Well, they have an equal vote with people who actually know...something.

These are irrational folks who would scream at you that the sky is red if you told them it was blue but you held a different world view than they did. This is the most frustrating thing about them. The Obama birth certificate is a perfect example. 40% of Republicans believe Obama was not born in the US, or at least think it is possible he wasn't despite the fact that it is readily available and well-publicized in many places. These people can't distinguish from belief and reality, and what's worse is trying to reason with them.

They detest intelligence. There are two possible explanations I can come up with for this. First, intelligent people make them feel insecure, so railing against education and knowledge is a defense mechanism. The second could be that because their intelligence is limited, they can't grasp the idea that other people are capable of knowing more than they do. I think it's mostly the first one.

The fact that they are proud of their ignorance and call people who are smarter than them "elitists" only compounds the problem. Why do they do that?

Because they're told to. And they vote how they're told to without bothering to learn anything for themselves.

They're also arrogant folks. You can hear Fox News rail against Mr. Rogers telling kids they're special and all, yet Fox watchers must have taken his advice to heart, because they all think very much of themselves. First, they think they're better than other people in the world simply because they're Americans. Most of them have never left the country and have no idea what it's like anywhere else. Many of them think Arabs live in tents, for example. Instead of counting their blessings that they weren't born into a dictatorship, they proclaim their superiority over other people despite the fact that none of them chose to be born in America. Compare this to saying you're better than someone because of your skin color. It's the same thing. And they think that, too.

Oh sure, they claim to not be racists, but that's only because they don't understand modern racism. (Well, some of them are proud racists.) Because they aren't that bright, they tend to view the term racism as lynchings and firehoses, something that doesn't happen these days. What they refuse to understand is the institutionalized racism - the psychological and sociological impact of this nation's history with race. The fact that they deny racism exists is in itself a form of racism.

They also think they're somehow entitled to America above others. This is why they rail against immigrants, despite the fact that they are descendants of immigrants themselves. Take this guy, a model citizen for the Foxcist Movement of America. He had his propaganda down. You can't get much more racist than that. Devil costume, anti-Latino slur. Good job, Hans. Sieg heil!

But they can't walk more than a few blocks without having to sit down to rest. This is due to the fact that they all come from places where they drive everywhere. Walking is reserved for the refrigerator.

They were everywhere. They invaded my cafes, my bars - some of them actually were hogging up space in a non-Barnes and Noble bookstore. I couldn't get away from them. And the looks of hatred they had in their eyes, and the comments they made upon seeing my shirt, well, I came home and threw darts for a half hour.

I think the teabagger "movement" can best be summed up by this photo, a brochure for the Vietnam Memorial tossed on the ground.